Australian Seabird Rescue

Sept 25 Wollongong – Marine Incident Response for Wildlife

“Be prepared”

YOUR INVITATION TO AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION
HOW CAN OUR COMMUNITY RESPOND EFFECTIVELY TO AN OIL SPILL INCIDENT?

Please join us at Wollongong at
The Illawarra Yacht Club
1 Northcliffe Drive
Warrawong

SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2011 : 9.00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Morning and afternoon tea provided, lunch BYO.

There have been six oil spills along east coast over the last decade, three of those occurring in
the past two years. The most recent was the 12 tonne oil spill in Newcastle Harbour from a
coal ship in August last year.

With our marine coast being a superhighway for supertankers and the Pacific Highway
carrying numerous fuel-laden semi-trailers, disasters can happen anywhere anytime at any
scale. The boy scout adage to “be prepared” is key to effective community response.
I have been involved in several oil spills at various levels, both here and overseas. On the one
hand I have seen a community working well to support a relatively small oil spill here in
Australia (“Iron Baron”, Tasmania 1995); and on the other hand, at the catastrophic Gulf of
Mexico Oil Spill last year, I saw coastal communities confused, hostile and devastated.
With concern about the preparedness of NSW coastal communities, I believe that we can be
better prepared and organised. In order to raise awareness and get some conversations going
about effective integrated response, Australian Seabird Rescue (ASR) sought and received
funding assistance from the NSW Environmental Education Trust.

With additional funding from the Lance Ferris Memorial Trust, ASR is now hosting five free
public seminars along the NSW coast at Ballina, Pt Macquarie, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong.
It’s not just about trained service personnel or the precious few trained wildlife rescuers who
are well prepared to respond, but anyone who would want to help but isn’t sure how.
Any incident, large or small, will be managed primarily by highly trained personnel but
communities want to help, want to protect and restore their environment, and the best way
they can do that is to become informed about how it all works.

The fifth and final workshop in this series will be held at in Wollongong at a venue tba on Sunday September 25th.

Key speakers include ASR President, Marny Bonner who will discuss capture techniques and first aid; also NPWS Marine Fauna Co-ordinator, Geoff Ross. Other speakers will cover topics such as bird species at risk in the Sydney region.

We hope to see you there. Refreshments will be provided but BYO lunch.

Please register by email to: admin@seabirdrescue.org
or by phoning ASR during office hours on: +61 02 66 862 852.